


Wandering in our heads

by EmmaArthur



Series: Whumptober 2019 [20]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Disabled Character, M/M, Sense8 AU, They're all a cluster, Whumptober, and some fluff, injuries, mind sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 21:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21152228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaArthur/pseuds/EmmaArthur
Summary: Alex is glad that he's not going to die alone.orThe Sense8 AU no-one asked for.





	Wandering in our heads

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober day 23: **Bleeding Out**.
> 
> It's really just a snippet, but it was fun.
> 
> Title is from Patrick Watson's Broken, because I was listening to it while trying to come up with a title and it fit.
> 
> [injuries, blood, amputation, mentions of war and death]

_Kyle, I need your help, _ Alex calls out in his mind, praying that he won't lose consciousness before Kyle can make it to him.

“I'm here,” Kyle says from behind his head. “_Dios Santo._”

He kneels by Alex's side immediately. “I need to stay with me, Alex. I can't help if you're unconscious.”

“I know,” Alex murmurs, but his eyes are fluttering close on their own.

“You're losing too much blood. Guys, I need some help here!”

“What do you need?” Max is immediately there. “Shit!”

The others cluster around Alex, their form a mess, probably owning to his own half-conscious state. He hears various swears in English and Spanish, until a new voice speaks his name and everything else nearly fades away. “Alex.”

“Michael,” Alex breathes.

Michael crouches down by him and pulls his head onto his lap. “Breathe, Alex. Stay with me.”

“You're bleeding out,” Kyle says. “Your leg is in a bad state. I need to do a tourniquet. Do you know if help is coming soon?”

Alex bites his tongue, hard, against the pain before he can answer. “I'm not sure anyone's coming at all,” he says. When he looks past the others, all he can see is debris and dead bodies. Bodies of his whole unit. He swallows back a sob.

“Let me in,” Kyle says. “I need to stop the bleeding now or you're going to lose consciousness.”

Alex nods, opening his mind. He retreats as Kyle takes control over his body, thankful to be able to let go of some of the pain. Kyle won't feel it, no more than they all already do.

Michael's mind touches his own, gently. It's been a very long time since Alex has allowed this kind of connection between them. “Nine years,” Michael supplies. “Three months and fifteen days.”

“You keep count?” Alex asks, fully in his mind this time.

“Always. I'm still waiting for you.”

With the mind connection, they can't lie to each other. Alex would like to tell Michael that he's moved on, that  he's not just staying away because he's scared of what his father might do, but he can't. Michael knows. Jesse Manes has been chasing clusters for longer than Alex has been alive, and Alex simply can't put his at risk. So he has to stay away from all of them.

Now though… Alex already knows his leg is fucked. If by some miracle he survives this−he wants to, if only because he doesn't want to put his cluster through feeling him die−he's not going to be able to keep going like before. This is going to change  everything .

So Alex accepts the little bit of comfort, his head on Michael's lap, Michael's hand on his, even if it's only in their minds.

“I'm done,” Kyle says, sounding out of breath. “This should hold for a bit, but if you're not found in less than an hour, your leg won't be salvageable.”

It's probably already too late for it, Alex picks up as he slides back into his own body.  It's probably already too late for him. No one is coming. If the Air Force sends in a rescue mission, it won't be here for hours, and Alex won't make it until then.

“Don't think about it now,” Liz says. “We need to get you out of here.”

“How?” Alex asks. He's in no state to move, let alone walk anywhere. He can barely raise his head, at this point. His left shoulder is dislocated, and his neck is at least sprained. He has a hundred cuts bleeding sluggishly all over his body, and he's feeling more and more sluggish−

“No! Alex, stay with me!” Michael shouts.

Alex forces himself to open his eyes again. The terrified look on Michael's face is enough to make him fight the darkness. “Still here,” he murmurs. He feels Isobel take his hand, the one Michael isn't already holding. Maria and Liz are looking at him with fear in their eyes, while Max rages that no one is coming.

Alex smiles. They're all here. They're here for him. Kyle and Liz are wearing lab coat s , and Max his uniform, which means they're all supposed to be at work, and yet they're here.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, when he can feel himself slipping under. “For coming.”

“Of course,” Liz says. “We won't abandon you.”

They'll feel it, Alex knows, when he dies. Mimi told them all once how  her cluster died, how it felt, before she started losing her memories. They all know that's from grief. The seven of them tried to hold her up, as her cluster children, but she's still slowly losing herself.

“Be there for each other,” Alex breathes. “Be there for Michael.”

Isobel squeezes his hand. “ We will,” she says through her tears.

“Alex, don't−” Michael starts, but Alex stops him.

“I love you,” he murmurs.

He catches each of their eyes for a moment, trying to convey everything he feels. But they already know. They've always known, everything, just like he knows what they're thinking.

He ends with Michael,  who is openly crying now. “I've always loved you.”

“I love you too,” Michael sobs, lying down beside him to pull him into a hug.

Alex doesn't take his eyes off him as the others pile up around them, for one last group hug. He takes Michael's image with him when he loses his battle against unconsciousness, and gives in to the dark.

He's not dying alone.

Michael can't help feeling giddy and nervous, as he  sits at the bar of the Wild Pony, almost five months later. Maria smirks at him. It's ridiculous. It's not like he hasn't seen Alex since his injury in Iraq, they've been visiting each other every day. And yet Michael feels like this is the first day of his life, and it might well be true.

It's the first time he's going to see Alex in the flesh in ten years.

Maria is nearly as nervous as he is, he can feel, though she's better at hiding it. So many things have happened since their lives were derailed, that night in senior year, just before graduation. The last time Michael−any of them really−was in the same physical space as Alex.

“I wish I was with you guys,” Liz says from her spot on the seat beside Michael. 

“I know,” Maria says, looking at Michael as she talks so it doesn't appear to the outside as if she's talking to thin air. They've gotten good at talking to each other in their minds only, but sometimes it looks more natural to react to things that aren't there than to suddenly space out. “But you have your defense tomorrow, and you're going to ace it. Then you can come down here.”

“I still don't know if I really want to come back to Roswell,” Liz sighs. “Permanently, I mean. There's so many bad memories.”

Michael bites his lip, sending a wordless apology in the air. That night will always stay the worst night of their lives. Rosa's death, and the circumstances surrounding it, made their newborn cluster implode, and it was years before they found each other again.

“Max would be overjoyed,” he says.

“Maybe that's exactly why I don't want to come back,” Liz answers. “I have a fiance, you know.”

“You're not very enthusiastic about it, given that he proposed last night,” Maria remarks.

“Yeah,” Liz shrugs. “I don't know. I could only think of today. It's hard, not being able to tell him about all this.”

“Then why did you say yes?”

“Because she loves him?” Isobel interjects, sitting down on Michael's other side. “I understand Liz, it _is _hard. I hate not being able to tell Noah. But it can work, between you two.”

“I guess we'll see,” Liz sighs. 

“They're here,” Maria says, and everyone goes quiet. Michael watches Kyle walk inside the bar, and hold the door. Then Alex comes in, leaning on crutches and gingerly walking on his new prosthesis, and everything goes quiet in Michael's mind. Not in the cluster mind, no, because everyone there is excited, but in his own little corner. Alex has always been the only one who could do this to him.

Michael stands as Alex and Kyle make their slow way up to him and Maria. Liz and Isobel are still here, and Max is listening, though he's on patrol and can't fully visit them.  When Alex is finally standing in front of him, Michael stops breathing.

“Hey,” Alex says. 

Michael stares, and gasps when his body reminds him he needs oxygen. Isobel snickers.

“Um, is this seat taken?” Alex asks, nodding to the seat beside Michael, where Liz was a moment ago. She's now behind the counter with Maria.

Michael shakes his head. Alex pushes himself up onto the high bar stool with some difficulty, letting Kyle handle his crutches. Michael can feel his pain, while focused on him. “You okay?” he asks.

Alex smiles softly. “I'm fine.  Getting b etter with this everyday,” he knocks his knuckles on his prosthetic leg.

Michael remembers their collective relief when Alex finally woke in the hospital, after they waited for more than a day without any news. They'd known he wasn't dead, his presence still there are the edge of the cluster mind, but it wasn't the same as knowing he was out of the wood.

The relief only lasted so long before the grief started. Alex's grief, for the men and women in his unit who didn't make it, and for the leg he lost in the process. It was strong enough to overpower the cluster mind for a while, like Liz's grief for her sister once was. But this time, they were all here for Alex.

Still, seeing him, touching him now, being in the same physical room−it takes Michael's breath away. Alex opens his arms and he falls into them. 

“I can't believe you're here,” Michael murmurs in his shoulder.

“I'm here,” Alex says. “And I'm here to stay.”

Michael pulls back just enough to look at him. “Really?”

“Yes. I'm getting transferred here permanently as soon as I'm cleared to work.”

Michael wants to jump and flap at the news. Instead, he does the first thing that come to his mind and kisses Alex.

Alex doesn't try to stop him. Instead, he pulls Michael closer and kisses his back. Michael almost pulls back in surprise at first, as he expected Alex to push him away. Alex has always been clear that as much as they love each other, and they can hardly hide that when their minds are permanently connected, they can't be close as long as Jesse Manes is out there.

This kiss is more intense than anything they've had since that day at the toolshed.

“Hey!” Kyle calls after a while. “You know I love you guys, but I don't need to watch you make out like teenagers!”

Alex pulls back and smirks at him. “What, you jealous?” he asks.

It was strange, seeing Alex's relationship with Kyle evolve. Michael knows they were childhood friends before Kyle became a homophobic bully, but watching them get close as the cluster finally worked things out, become best friends, it's been an adjustment. Thankfully, they've had years to get used to it. Even Michael considers Kyle his friend, now.

Kyle huffs and rolls his eyes. Michael ignores him, and pulls Alex in for another kiss. Now that he's had one, he can't get enough.

“We'll have plenty of time to get enough of each other,” Alex mutters.

“Yeah, you will,” Maria says, coming out from behind the counter. “Now let me catch up with my friend.”

Michael takes a step back, and she pulls Alex into a hug. “I'm glad you're here,” she says.

“Me too,” Alex replies. “It's been a long time.”

“Way too long,” Michael adds.

“I'm here now,” Alex says. “And I have a plan to take out my father.”

**Author's Note:**

> What do you think of the seven of them as a cluster?


End file.
